


without a choice, I'd still choose you

by la_victorienne



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-23
Updated: 2013-04-22
Packaged: 2017-12-09 06:13:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 15,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/770926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/la_victorienne/pseuds/la_victorienne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a temporally displaced Civil War soldier shows up on Stiles' doorstep, he does the decent thing and takes him in. Little does he know that this Civil War soldier is named Derek Hale, or that they are going to fall in love. A story about time management, lying to your friends, and not letting a little thing like the time-space continuum get in the way of boning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When Stiles was a kid, after his mother died, his dad didn’t know what to do with him. Or, okay, well. Now that he’s an adult he’s pretty sure his dad just didn’t know what to do with what the doctors were telling him, the people who had their fingers in Stiles’ mouth and ears and brain. They diagnosed the ADHD, sent him to an unconventional kind of therapy at a “Learning Center,” gave him coping tools and drugs and a pat on the newly-buzzed head. His dad sat with him in the waiting rooms, ferried him back and forth to school and soccer and lacrosse practices, grilled burgers and learned to steam broccoli for a growing boy. (Stiles took over the cooking when he was fifteen, because there are only so many Hungry Man meals a guy can eat.)

He likes to think he has it under control, now. It’s been fifteen years, he’s learned new ways to channel the energy that ADHD gave him. Lacrosse was good, once he figured out how to get better at it. Scott helped a lot, going running with him in the beginning, keeping up a constant chatter Stiles could learn to tune out, nothing that really mattered. It got even easier when Scott met Allison, because that meant Stiles really didn’t need to care about what Scott was saying, only focused on the pavement beneath his feet, a thump-thump-thump of building stamina, muscle, power. Attention.

It got him through high school, and college, and now graduate school. Running until his body won’t run any more. Then it’s back to the grindstone, back to the thesis, back to the world of strict time limits and carefully scheduled breaks. Back to the places he has come to learn how to fill.

Except this run is different.

He has work to do, he knows. He has a lot of work to do, actually, and he’d blocked out the evening in careful lines and color-coding. Finding a bloody, groaning, hulking shape of a man in the alleyway outside his apartment doesn’t fit under any of them. And really, there shouldn’t be any reason for him to stop. There are homeless people all over Richmond--all over the whole of Virginia. There’s no reason for him to think twice. But the man waves a hand and pulls it away, as if already apologizing, and wheezes.

“Please. Help me.”

And that’s how Stiles meets Derek.

 

Once he has Derek in his apartment, the clarity starts to fade. What was he thinking? What if this guy is an axe murderer? Stiles clenches his teeth and pushes Derek towards the bathroom, waving off the gritted-out thank yous in favor of taking Derek’s coat. (His weirdly old coat, like seriously, who wears this shit any more, but that’s beside the point and Stiles is already distracted enough.)

“I’m going to make you soup. Get in the shower--I’ll try to find some clothes that’ll fit you, so that I can throw yours in the wash. Is that cool?”

“Cool,” Derek replies, with his eyebrows knitted so tight together Stiles thinks they might stick. “I--yes? The shower. It’s not outside?”

“What? No, dude, it’s freezing out there for one, and I can afford a little better than that, for two. Hot water runs out after about twenty minutes, but otherwise it’s decent. Keeps me from taking too much time, saves the planet, yadda yadda. I’m going to go make that soup.”

“Thank you,” Derek says again, and Stiles closes the door behind him.

“No problem,” he calls through the door, trying not to picture Derek stripping out of his shirt and pants and climbing into the shower. He’s failing, but the effort is what counts, right?

 

By the time he has some tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches made, Derek has come out of the bathroom and put on a pair of Stiles’ sweatpants. Stiles makes a point of not noticing how they fit snug across Derek’s hips, because just because he hasn’t gotten any in a while doesn’t mean it’s okay to hit on the guy he just brought in off the street. That’s not how it works.

“Hope you like tomato, it’s all I’m eating until payday,” Stiles says, bringing the bowls to the table. “You look better.”

“I feel better, thanks to you,” Derek says quietly. “You are not like the rest of the people in this place. Many passed me by before you.”

Stiles shrugs. “I would have wondered about you all night, otherwise. Like I said earlier, it’s freezing outside. I don’t think I could handle finding you frozen to death out there tomorrow morning. I have a delicate conscience, I, like, catch spiders and put them out the window and stuff. How’s your soup?”

“Warm, thank you. You are a good cook.”

Stiles laughs. “It’s from a can, but thanks, dude. I cooked for my dad a lot in high school.” Derek ducks his head and half-smiles, eating his soup. So, okay, he’s not a big talker. Stiles can work with that, it’s not a deal-breaker. If he were a stranger in somebody’s house, infringing on their charity and sheer goodheartedness, he might be quiet too. Or maybe Derek is just shy, which isn't unheard of.

It might not be likely, but it’s possible. Whatever, he’s distracted again. If Derek won’t talk, Stiles can fill the silence with a whole host of meaningless babble. “So your name is Derek? Derek what? Where are you from? What do you do? How did you end up on my doorstep? You don’t have to answer that, I just want to know. I mean I don’t blame you for not wanting to say anything, and if what you have to say is illegal I probably shouldn’t know anyway, because if I do then I can’t claim plausible deniability. But, you know, I’m curious. I’m usually curious, you’ll learn that about me very quickly.” He slurps up some soup and stares at Derek, who looks mostly startled.

“Er,” he says eloquently. “You—you may not believe any of this.”

Then Derek says he’s from 1865.

 

“You’re joking,” Stiles says, dropping his spoon into his bowl. “You can’t possibly be—I _know_ a Hale, Derek, for Christ’s sake! You’re saying I might be friends with your great-great-granddaughter?”

“That is precisely what I am saying, although if I never make it back to my time I find it unlikely that she is my direct descendant. I do not belong here, Stiles. I will never belong here.” Derek bites out the words as if it pains him to speak any more than three at a time. Stiles, meanwhile, can only sit dumbfounded, staring at the dirty dishes from their supper and making strange, disbelieving sounds.

“I’m—dude, I’m sorry if I’m not—I believe you, okay, I don’t know why but I do. I’m just trying to wrap my head around it a little. This is like every Doctor Who dream I ever had coming true, except without the kinky sex in the TARDIS. Not that you’d know what any of that is. Except maybe the kinky sex.” Yeah, Stiles has noticed the bruises on Derek’s wrist. “Anyway. Just. I’m sorry, I’m still trying to process everything, I guess. Just give me a second.”

Derek isn’t looking at him, has his head turned down and away. Stiles takes a minute to look at him, really examine his face. It’s not so much of a stretch, to imagine him fitting in a few centuries ago. He has the right look about him, the strong jaw and dark eyebrows that would fit right in on a solemn, ill-posed portrait hanging in the National Gallery. And if it is possible, if what he says is real, well then. Maybe his portrait is hanging there already.

“Hey,” he finally says, and Derek’s head jerks up. “I believe you, dude,” he repeats. “But this is a lot to take in, especially when we could be sleeping. Come on. I can’t put you in Scott’s bed, because sometimes Allison does actually make him leave, but there’s a sofa out here, and it’s not super shitty. We can face it tomorrow, right? I’ve got your back.”

“You are a strange person, Stiles,” Derek says, but there’s relief in his voice.

Stiles grins. “Yeah, I know. But you’re from the past, so I guess that makes us even on the strange front.”

 

 

Stiles wakes in the middle of the night when he feels the bed dip behind him. “I beg your pardon,” Derek whispers. “The outer room is very cold. My brother and I used to share a bed—may I?”

“Urgh,” Stiles groans. “Yes, of course, just shh. Sleeping.” When Derek settles, he’s a warm line along Stiles’ back, and Stiles smiles to himself as he falls back to sleep. There are a lot of things that are going to be difficult in the days ahead, but this? This is actually pretty good. 


	2. Chapter 2

Derek is awake when Stiles gets up, awake and sitting across from Scott at the breakfast table.

“Well, this is unexpected. Scott, Derek, Derek, Scott,” Stiles says, yawning. “Derek, Scott is rarely home any longer, so I didn’t expect him to be here. Scott, Derek was freezing and possibly dying when he walked me home from hanging out last night so I took pity on him, brought him in and cuddled him back to health. Or, at least I assume he’s back to health, since you’re both eating bacon and Scott doesn’t know how to cook.”

“I’m fine,” Derek says, looking slightly out of his depth. Stiles drops down next to him with a hand on his shoulder. “I cooked the bacon for you, but Scott seems to have eaten most of it.”

Stiles laughs. “Yeah, he does that. No problem, buddy, I can eat oatmeal with the best of them.”

Derek slides his plate over to Stiles. There are three pieces of bacon on it. “I saved some,” he grits out. Stiles glances up at him, and then glances up at Scott, whose face is priceless.

“That’s--very nice of you, Derek. You didn’t have to do that.”

Derek doesn’t say a word. Scott just looks between them, dumbfounded. “Is this for real?” he finally asks. “Did you hire someone to do this? Am I being punk’d? I feel like I’m being punk’d.”

“You’re not being punk’d, Scott. Seriously. Derek was feeling less than spectacular, and he didn’t have anywhere to go, so I took him home.” Scott’s eyebrows contort in a way that means he wants to have a word alone. Stiles rolls his eyes. “As you can see, he’s a wonderful person. He made me bacon.”

“And he’s sitting right here,” Derek mutters. “I do not know what the point of this is. Stiles did what any neighbor would do, although there were many who passed by me last night. I have been—lost for a while, now. Stiles has done me a great kindness. I would not harm him lightly, or without reason.”

“See?” Stiles says. “Nothing to worry about.” If he feels a little flutter of self-importance, that’s nobody’s business but his.

“Okay,” Scott says, but his voice makes it clear that the conversation isn’t over. He is a lot like his mother, sometimes.

“How was your night? Allison okay?”

“Yeah,” Scott says, finally breaking into something like a smile. “She had an early shift and I have a late, so I came back to catch a shower and some breakfast. Maybe a nap. Probably a nap. I have some labs to finish, but they’re not due until next week. What about you?”

Derek sits next to Stiles until Scott has rinsed his plate and gone back to his room, the tension gone. Stiles grins and leans back in his chair. “Seriously, man. Thanks for the bacon.”

“Thank you for the place to stay. I suppose I should get out of your way. Your brother seemed less than appreciative of my being here.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. Brother is probably the most accurate depiction of Scott Derek could come up with, so he doesn’t correct the assumption. “Don’t let a little old-fashioned hurt him and die speech drive you away. He was surprised, that’s all. It’s been a long time since I’ve brought anyone home. Er, not that I brought you home the way he thinks I did. Which brings me to an important point—Scott is not going to know anything about where you’re actually from, because he cannot keep a secret to save his life, and the last thing either one of us needs is his girlfriend finding out. How do you feel about being my pretend boyfriend, instead?”

“I beg your pardon?” Derek looks like he’s been hit with a sack of bricks, which makes sense if Stiles thinks about it. The past twenty hours or so have flown by—it’s almost enough to forget what Derek himself has gone through to get here.

“Sorry, I’ll slow down. That happens a lot, just so you know—me getting ahead of myself. Let me explain.

“I’m gay, first of all, which means I have sex with guys and it’s all cool in this day and age. I mean, there are some people who frown on it and marriage isn’t legal everywhere yet, so I guess it’s not all cool, but the point stands. I have sex with men. Scott knows, my dad knows, all my friends know. Most of them were around for my first really intense relationship, after a series of fixated crushes on girls and then boys in my high school. I don’t know where you stand on that whole idea, and I’m sorry if it freaks you out, but the truth is Scott is going to be less suspicious of you if you pretend at least that you went on a date with me and ended up here. We don’t have to like, make out in front of him or anything, I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable. But this way Scott won’t even question you hanging out here all the time or staying with me. Does that make sense?”

Derek nods, very slowly.

“Is this okay with you? As a cover story?”

Again, a slow nod. Stiles watches to see if Derek is going to say anything else, but Derek just watches Stiles across the table. Finally, when Stiles is about to clear his throat and say something even more awkward, Derek takes a breath. “I am not unfamiliar with the notion of being—gay,” he says. “I do not think any less of you for it.”

“For real? Well, thanks, bro,” Stiles says.

“You are continuing to open your home to me,” Derek continues haltingly. “I do not see a reason to alienate you. There were—there are men I know, who took comfort in each other. There is a war. It is not easy.”

And that, well. It sucks to think about and it sucks even more to admit to himself, but it makes Stiles feel a little warmer than even the bacon and coffee can. 

They spend most of the day on the sofa, talking about how Derek got here. Stiles is really impressed with how much Derek can talk, once he gets started, although sometimes he falls back into silence, gathering his thoughts. Stiles is actually even more impressed when he does that—the Sheriff always used to tell him that he’d get a lot more bang for his buck if he knew how to think before he spoke. Those moments of silence do more to convince Stiles that Derek is telling the truth than anything else, because it’s not awkward. It’s just there.

“So let me get this straight,” Stiles says, after Derek has finally talked his fill. “You weren’t walking anywhere, you weren’t doing anything. One minute you were there, the next you were on my doorstep.”

“That is the best I can do,” Derek says quietly. “I may have lost consciousness, I’m not sure. All I know is that between blinks of the eye, I had come forward.”

“That’s rough, dude,” Stiles says. “I hope I can help you get back somehow. I can’t imagine waking up in the future and not knowing how I got there.”

“I would like that,” Derek says, and okay, that’s enough. Stiles is done focusing on the shitty part of Derek being here.

“While we wait to get you there, though, how about we catch you up on the awesome stuff about the future? Who knows, you might be able to take back some, like, advanced knowledge and make a fortune once the war ends. Which, spoiler, it does.”

Derek huffs a laugh. “What did you have in mind?”

“Stiles shrugs, listing off on his fingers. “Pizza, video games, pizza, Lord of the Rings, ice cream, central heating, running water, pizza…I’m probably forgetting some things, but yeah, those are some of the big ones.” He grins over at Derek. “And don’t even get me started on the internet. Actually, do get me started, as the internet is how we are going to receive the pizza. And as you may have noticed, pizza is a top priority.”

“You mentioned that,” Derek says quietly, in direct contrast with Stiles’ over-invested exuberance. “Will you show me how it works?”

Stiles opens up his laptop, quits out of any and every thesis-related window, and starts ordering Domino’s. Derek gets close to watch the process with his eyebrows furrowed, taking in every step with silent intensity. “The best part is that in about an hour, all this clicking and typing is going to manifest itself in delicious, meaty, cheesy pizza. It is probably going to make you sick to your stomach, it’s so good.”

When Derek looks Stiles dead in the face and grins, the bottom drops out of Stiles’ stomach. He’s suddenly struck by the cruelty of the universe—Derek is kind, gentle, and interesting, not to mention unbelievably hot, and he’s been dropped almost literally into Stiles’ lap. And for what? What kind of terrible lesson is Stiles being taught, patience? What a load of crap. He’s going to need all the patience he can get if he’s going to survive this spatio-temporal anomaly bullshit.

He blinks, trying to come back to himself. Derek is still grinning, the gorgeous charming bastard. “Yeah, you think you’re going to like it,” Stiles says. “You’re wrong. You’re going to love it. Pizza is the universe’s way of saying it loves us and it wants us to be happy.”

“Even with the illness it purportedly brings?” Derek is teasing him, and Stiles knows it. He likes it.

“Especially then, dude,” Stiles says honestly. “It’ll be worth it, I promise.”

“I do not doubt you.” It's enough.

It’s better than enough. The pizza is everything Stiles could have asked it to be and more, and it’s not long before Derek is leaned back on the sofa groaning, unable to focus on the Netflix in front of them. (Stiles thought it might be too much, to watch Lord of the Rings and eat pizza in the same night, and he’s glad he was right.) Stiles claps a hand on Derek’s shoulder and grins. “Welcome to the twenty-first century, my friend,” he says, and Derek looks at him. He doesn’t look happy, exactly, but he looks okay. And really, that’s all Stiles can do for now.

When they finally eat the last slice of pizza, when the Netflix on the Xbox asks them if they’re sure they want to continue, Stiles hauls Derek up by the arm. “Come on, man, let’s go to bed.”

“You—I—er.” Derek frowns at him, his eyebrows furrowing. Stiles rubs a long finger along the groove, smoothing it out.

“If you concentrate on not saying the wrong thing any harder you’re going to hurt yourself. You said last night you sleep better when there’s somebody else there, and my bed is plenty big enough for two, and if you sleep out here then Scott will think we’ve had a fight but he won’t understand why you didn’t just go home to your own imaginary non-existent apartment. Come on. Let’s go to bed. I promise not to molest you in your sleep.”

Derek narrows his eyes at Stiles. “I wonder what I do not know about this century,” he says, “that you feel the need to make such a promise. I trust you, Stiles. I do not worry that you will act dishonorably.”

“Man, that was poetry,” Stiles says, and pushes Derek towards the bedroom. It’s good, because that way Derek can’t see the look in Stiles’ eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

The days pass slowly. Stiles has class, and he works on his thesis when he’s home, except for the twelve hours they spend in Middle Earth. Derek falls into the movie, forgets the popcorn Stiles made and slides all the way to the floor, elbows on the coffee table. When the movie ends Derek is crying, just a little. Stiles pretends not to notice.

It’s easy to pretend there’s nothing out of place about Derek when there’s nobody else in the apartment but them. He eats, sleeps, watches TV, and asks questions about Stiles’ work that actually help the way Stiles thinks about it. Except for the fact that he isn’t comfortable with contractions and gets weirdly blushy when Stiles doesn’t have a shirt on, it’s almost like Derek is totally normal. (The blush is charming, flattering even. Stiles thinks it’s probably not because he himself is any kind of attractive to Derek, but it doesn’t hurt his self-esteem.)

Well, okay, normal except for the cuddling. That’s a hard one to take—Derek cuddles in his sleep, mostly by accident, and only for a little while at a time. He throws his arm over Stiles and presses his face to Stiles’ back, only to roll away thirty interminable minutes later. Stiles likes the sensation of having someone else in the bed with him, but the warm press of Derek’s arm is getting to be a problem.

 

Night three of sharing a bed with Derek, and Stiles is dreaming, in sharp clarity and vivid color. He’s barefoot in a battlefield, the sounds and smells of death and dying all around him, thick and cloying. He wants to vomit. He runs his hands down his own chest and feels cold metal buttons and worn leather belts, a uniform that ends below his knees. He’s lost, lonely, and miserable, the only living being in sight. He wonders if this is how Derek feels.

Of course that’s when Derek appears, because this is a dream and Stiles can have almost anything he wants, even if it’s not exactly what he needs. Derek is backlit in sharp relief on the horizon, moving towards Stiles as if in slow motion. Or maybe in slow motion, Stiles can’t tell. He’s so relieved to see Derek’s stubbled face and broad shoulders he could almost weep. Between blinks of the eye Derek is upon him, face to face, of a height with Stiles and nearly nose to nose.

“I’m afraid,” Stiles says, and Derek nods gravely.

“There is much to fear.” Derek takes Stiles hand, though, and turns him around and away from the fighting, away from the fear. “But I will not abandon you to any of it. You have not abandoned me.”

“I don’t plan to,” Stiles says, but it’s swallowed by the rush of time passing all at once. He’s not surprised that this is where his subconscious is sending him, here in a quiet, fire-lit room. He’d rather it be here in the dark recesses than out in the open, taking advantage of a time-sick traveler. This is good. This is fine. This is what Stiles will settle for.

In flickering firelight Derek’s body is everything Stiles can dream it to be, complete with soft hands and an open mouth. His kisses are sweet and slow, lingering for long moments until Stiles can’t think, much less resist. He hasn’t slept with anyone he liked this much since the two years in undergrad he spent with Danny, and it’s showing—he’s happy to take his time here, wait as long as it takes to arrive at total and complete bliss. There’s so much to do—there’s skin to touch and sweat to lick and everything right here under his hands and it’s perfect, it’s exactly what he wants, exactly what he needs, and they’re laying back and the sheets are soft and—

Stiles is awake, dangerously close to Derek in the bed, with cottonmouth and an erection.

“Shit,” he whispers, breath gusting over Derek’s face. Stiles scoots back as far as he can as fast as he can without tipping himself over the side of the bed, and eases up. Jerking it in the bathroom isn’t an ideal turn of events, but he’s done it before and he’ll do it again if that’s what will keep Derek from feeling uncomfortable around him. The blush is cute, but it’s also a little unavoidable, and Stiles really isn’t keen on pushing the boundaries when he’s offered up his home and relative protection. The last thing he wants is for Derek to feel taken advantage of.

His laptop is still out in the living room—he’ll get some work done after he relieves his hard-on. He won’t be able to sleep now anyway, too worried he’ll start rutting up against Derek without knowing it. Sometimes it is really shitty, being the good guy.

In the bathroom he fists himself roughly, just this side of too dry and too tight, turned on enough that it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t take long, a hard-bitten lip and the knuckles of his other hand going white against the towel bar and he’s there, coming over his fingers. It’s good, it’s fine, it’ll do. And when Derek is gone to the place and time he came from, Stiles will give himself one good self-care session with the memory of his Derek sex dream, because he’s only human. And that’ll be all, and that’ll be okay.

He cleans up the bathroom, soaps over his hands so they don’t smell like jizz, and pulls a blanket and pillow out of the hall linen closet so he can settle in on the sofa. It’s two in the morning, and a long way to dawn.

 

He wakes to a hand shaking his shoulder. “Stiles—Stiles, wake up. Why are you out here?” It’s Derek, his eyebrows furrowed and his hair mussed. “Was I restless? Did I keep you awake?”

“No, dude, hey, no, you’re fine. I was having a dream, woke myself up.” Stiles sits up, nearly brains himself on Derek’s forehead, pats over where Derek’s hand is still resting on his shoulder. “I must have fallen asleep out here while I was working. Seriously, man, it’s no problem. What are you doing up? What time is it? Ugh, my mouth tastes like ass. Come stand with me while I make some cocoa or something.”

Derek moves back as Stiles stands up, runs a hand through his hair, pushing his sleep cowlick even farther up. “I had a nightmare,” he says, following Stiles into the kitchen. “And when I woke, the room was empty.”

“Cocoa will help then, huh,” Stiles says, pulling the milk out of the fridge. “It’s what my mom always made me when I had a nightmare. That was before she died. After, I would come downstairs and try to make it for myself when I woke up in the middle of the night. My dad used to hear me banging around in the kitchen and come watch in the doorframe, just to make sure I didn’t hurt myself or set the house on fire. I didn’t know he was there until later—after I had made enough pots of terrible cocoa to figure out exactly what Mom put in hers. What was your dream about?”

He knows he’s putting out more information than he can expect Derek to keep up with, but misdirection was a key part of Mom’s strategy to bring Stiles down too. She’d tell him stories about her day, stories he later came to suspect were mostly made up, until he’d sipped his cocoa and started to fall asleep at the table again. He hopes it’ll work for Derek.

“I was home,” Derek says. “It wasn’t pleasant.” That’s all he says, but it’s really all he needs to say.

“You want to talk about it?” Stiles asks anyway, pouring milk into the pot and starting to stir slowly.

“No,” Derek sighs, sinking down at the table.

“Okay,” Stiles says. The silence, he soon finds, is just enough.

 

They shuffle back to the bedroom together, full of warm, sweet chocolate. “You’re sure you don’t need me to stay out on the sofa?”

Derek takes hold of Stiles’ wrist. “I would rather not be alone, if you are still amenable to sharing.”

“I’m—yeah, it’s cool. Come on, let’s go to sleep. I have class tomorrow pretty early, I won’t wake you when I leave.”

“I won’t mind, even if you do,” Derek says quietly, pulling back the covers, sliding into bed.

Stiles swallows. Being the good guy is going to be a hell of a lot harder than he thought.


	4. Chapter 4

There are more nightmares. Stiles wakes up to Derek tossing and turning in the bed, throwing the covers off and sweating. The first time he tries to wake Derek up it works, but Derek also punches him in the face—not hard enough to bruise, but hard enough to hurt. After that, Stiles is faced with the choice of risking his nose or risking his boner, because the only other way Derek calms down is when Stiles holds tight to him, whispering into the darkness that it’ll all be okay. Derek turns into the embraces, presses his face into the curve of Stiles’ neck, falls back asleep and apparently forgets all about the dreams in the morning, because he never says a word to Stiles about them.

Stiles doesn’t say anything either. Nobody could ever accuse him of not being judiciously tightlipped in the face of awkward.

 

“Will you take me to the library?” Derek asks as Stiles gets out of the shower one afternoon. He’s looking steadfastly at the floor while Stiles drips dry around the apartment, towel hitched up with one hand. Stiles stands there without a shirt for a little while longer, unable to resist watching the blush grow and spread when Derek flicks his eyes up to Stiles’ face and catches sight of Stiles’ chest on the way back down.

“Yeah,” Stiles finally says, a lightness to his voice. “Yeah, let me put some pants on and we’ll go.”

“ _Please_ ,” he hears Derek mutter as he leaves the bedroom, and Stiles laughs. He knows it’s probably just Derek not being used to all the skin of the century, but it’s still excellent for his personal self-esteem.

“Ten minutes, I promise,” he shouts back, digging into the dresser drawer.

When he’s dressed he finds Derek sitting on the sofa, still staring hard at the floor. “I’m dressed now, dude, you don’t have to hide your eyes. Come on, let’s go, I’ll show you around the system and we can start looking for whatever you want to find.”

“Stiles,” Derek says, standing up and grabbing hold of Stiles’ wrist. “Thank you.”

“No problem, dude. For taking you to the library and for putting on pants.”

Derek flushes again, which is interesting, because it’s not like Stiles is naked now. He shoves his hands deep into the pockets of his borrowed jacket and scuffs his feet before they walk out the door, tightlipped all the way to the library. Stiles chatters on meaninglessly to fill the quiet, but his mind is churning. Is it really just old-school heebie-jeebies around naked people? Is it so unbelievable that Derek might be into him? Homosexuality was a thing ever since cavemen, right? Could the universe have brought Stiles a magical time-traveling boyfriend?

By the time they get to the library Stiles is kicking himself for even thinking it. His case of blue-balls is not the most important thing in this world, especially when Derek is scouring an unintelligible physics section, looking for actual academic work on time travel. It is completely inappropriate to be thinking about dating Derek.

If he repeats it to himself often enough, he might actually start to believe it.

 

That night Stiles lies awake, trying desperately to keep from turning over to watch Derek while he sleeps. He’s waiting, he tells himself, for the sound of Derek’s nightmares—it’s the kinder, gentler thing to do—but the truth is he can’t stop thinking about the way Derek had looked at him earlier, about the curl of fire low in his belly. He hates himself for how much he enjoyed it, and hates how he knows it’s not just because Derek is cock blocking his one-night-stands. He liked the attention because he likes _Derek_.

He likes Derek’s smile, his laugh, even though they rarely emerge. He likes Derek’s broad shoulders and shy attitude, wary about life in the future but interested by what it has to offer. He likes that Derek treats him like an equal, even though people like Stiles (ugh, _people like Stiles_ , as if Stiles is anything other than a fairly regular guy) aren’t really talked about in his time. He likes that Derek is warm and doesn’t kick the covers off, likes the line of heat along his back, likes the sleepy way he smiles in the morning. Every morning, he smiles at Stiles. It’s absurd. He wants Derek to stay with him forever, and that’s what he hates the most.

In his sleep, Derek turns towards Stiles, throws a hand over his chest to pin him in place. No nightmares so far, just deep and even breathing, a little shift closer to the curve of Stiles’ body. _Fuck everything_ , Stiles thinks, and lays a hand over Derek’s. It’s warm and comfortable, and Stiles falls asleep within moments.

 

He looks at Derek more carefully, after that. Treats him like he’s made of—not glass, but like who he is, not who Stiles wants him to be. He doesn’t walk around shirtless, doesn’t tease Derek for not knowing anything about anything, doesn’t get tired of answering questions or offering what help he can provide. It matters, he thinks to himself, watching Derek read the Wikipedia time travel page (printed and stapled, because Derek still hasn’t gotten used to the idea of reading on a screen). Even if all it does is make Derek feel welcome. Derek will always be welcome.

Derek looks up at Stiles and smiles, cautious but brilliant. “I haven’t found anything,” he says. “Why don’t we make dinner instead?”

 _I don’t want to lose you_ , Stiles thinks to himself, and he’s ashamed of it. _I don’t want you to go._


	5. Chapter 5

After a few weeks, Stiles has almost gotten used to Derek being there when he gets home, nose deep in one of the books they got out at the library or sitting rapturously in front of the television. But Stiles hasn’t been out drinking since Derek showed up, so he comes in the door on a Friday night with a plan.

“We’re going to go hang out with Scott and Allison tonight, put on some clean pants,” Stiles calls as soon as he walks in the house. “Oh wait, you can’t, because the new pairs of pants I bought you are still in the bag! Derek? Derek?”

“In the kitchen,” Derek calls, and pokes his head out, smiling ruefully. There’s a white streak on his cheek. “Do you think they’d want some supper? There’s plenty.”

“Uh, we’re meeting them there, actually. Plenty of what?”

“Er—well, there’s cornbread and potatoes and a sort of barbecue, although you don’t have anywhere for an open fire. I made it up, really. Are you hungry?”

“Starving, actually—did you find all of this in my kitchen?”

Derek shrugs. “Even if I had any money, it wouldn’t be good here. It was all in your icebox.”

“Melissa must have dropped off some groceries, then, because I can’t remember the last time Scott or I went shopping for actual vegetables.” Stiles smiles and reaches out a hand to wipe off the white streak on Derek’s cheek. “Thanks, man. It smells awesome.” His hand lingers a little longer than he means it to, but he drops it soon enough and Derek is still smiling.

“You said you bought me pants?” Derek asks, setting a plate in front of Stiles at the table.

“Yeah, man, ran by Goodwill on my way back from class. I thought you could use a couple more things, for however long you’re going to be stuck here. Few shirts, some pants, a pair of shoes. I had to estimate on your sizes, but if they don’t fit you can keep wearing your boots.”

“I’m sure it will be fine,” Derek says. “Thank you.”

“Dude, no problem.” Stiles takes a bite of the barbecue and potatoes and groans dramatically. “Small price to pay for something as good as this, man, you are a serious talent in the kitchen.”

“My mother always thought there was no reason why only the girls should learn to cook and clean,” Derek explains. “She, er, wanted us to be good husbands after the war was over, me and my brothers.”

“She did a good job,” Stiles says frankly. “I expect you’ll make an awesome husband when you get back home.”

“Do you really think I will?” Derek asks, after a beat. “I confess I am beginning to find it less and less likely I will ever return to where I came from.”

“Yeah, sure,” Stiles says, waving a hand. “I mean, it’s only been a few weeks, right? It’s not like we’re just going to stop looking.”

“And you are willing to keep me here for as long as that might take? To take responsibility for me even when it might hinder your daily life? I am not certain I could ask that of you in good faith.”

Stiles puts down his fork. “Derek Hale, I am going to say something to you, and I want you to hear me when I do, because it’s not often I say something without some kind of humor or delight intended as an outcome, okay?”

Derek nods, his strong, serious jaw clenched tight.

“I took you in because I thought you needed a place to go, that’s true. But I like you, dude. Even if you are in desperate need of a friend. I’m happy to be that friend, okay? Whatever that means, whatever that takes. I’m here for you, and if I am, Scott is too.”

Derek doesn’t look away, which Stiles appreciates. “Thank you,” he says quietly. Stiles has never known anyone who brings such meaning to the idea of less is more—Derek talks so little, but says so much.

“You’re welcome,” Stiles says. Hey, he can try it out. There’s a first time for everything, right?

 

After dinner Derek puts on the pants and shirt Stiles bought. They look good, better than Stiles expected they would, and he’s not ashamed to admit that he pats himself on the back a little. It’s not every man who can take a despondent wandering time traveler and turn him into the best-looking modern man to ever step foot in a college town bar.

Stiles holds up the last piece, an old leather jacket of his dad’s that’s always been a half-size too big for him. “Come on, man, let’s go drink and pretend there’s nothing in the world we have to worry about. Sound good?”

Derek shrugs into the jacket, and it fits like a glove. “It does, yes,” he says.

Stiles grins. “Okay, then. Away we go.”

 

Of course, that’s before they get there, and Derek stops dead in the doorway while Stiles is halfway through explaining Scott and Allison’s on-again off-again relationship thing. He jumps when Stiles takes his elbow. “You’re staring,” Stiles says, and Derek finally tears his eyes away from Scott and Allison, their heads bent towards each other.

“An Argent,” he says. “Did you just say she is an Argent?”

“Yeah, man. Her family’s been here forever. She’s an amateur genealogist, been tracking her ancestry all the way back to the Civil—oh, shit, man. You know some Argents?”

Derek nods abruptly. “Yeah, I know them. When—when I jumped, I was tied up in their basement.”

Jesus. “You’ve really gotta start telling me this stuff, man.”

“I had bruises on my wrists when I arrived, Stiles. You noticed them, I know you did. I watched you see them.”

Stiles blushes. “How was I supposed to know those weren’t from kinky sex? Do you not remember, like, the first thing I said to you about them?” Derek just scowls, and okay, fair enough, this is definitely not the point of this conversation. “Sorry. You were saying? Argents’ basement?”

Derek stiffens. “I’ll tell you later. When we’re—home.”

Stiles can’t help it—he grins, and lays a hand over Derek’s wrist under the table. “Okay, dude. Hey, by the way. Allison is cool, even if Scott is stupid about her sometimes. She’s not like whoever had you in the basement, you know?”

“I don’t,” Derek says. “But I’ll try.” That’s enough, Stiles thinks, and squeezes Derek’s wrist. He doesn’t let go.

 

Derek watches Allison most of the night, and that’s okay. His knee stays pressed up against Stiles’ under the table, too, so it’s not like Stiles could ask for much more. After three weeks of sleeping next to Derek he’s used to the lurch in his stomach any time they’re close enough to touch, and he’s pretty sure he’s coming to terms with the fact that it’ll never happen, too. And they walk home together, after Scott hugs Stiles tight and says “Hey, I know I was a little worried when you guys first started, but I’m happy for you, man.”

“It’s not like he has any idea where you came from, or whatever,” Stiles says as they walk, bumping shoulders with Derek every third step. “He just, you know. He thinks it’s nice, now that he has someone. He thinks I should have someone too. And I’m not going to lie, I kind of wish you were that someone, because there are a lot of ways that that would be easier, you know?”

He’s had a few drinks, he knows, but it takes a while for what he’s said to catch up with him. It’s not like Stiles is proposing marriage, or anything. He just thinks—and maybe it’s just wishful thinking, because again, longest he’s slept in a bed with the same someone since _Danny_ —that maybe there’s a reason Derek skipped a few hundred years to get here, and that reason might be so that Stiles could save him from the ancestral Argents’ shitty ass basement in the middle of the worst war on American soil ever. And it’s not arrogant to think that Stiles might have that purpose, might be that for Derek. It’s only arrogant if he thinks that’s the _only_ reason the universe decided to send Derek down the rabbit hole. There could be a hundred other reasons. Stiles just likes this one the most.

Oh, shit. He said most of that out loud.

“Look, man,” he says, slipping his hand into Derek’s and squeezing. Derek doesn’t pull away from him, just keeps steadily walking. “I wasn’t going to say anything, and—I’ll understand if you want to pretend it never happened. You—I know we’re not actually together, because that would be really fucking complicated. I get it. But now you know, okay? So uh. Sorry, man. We can just start over.”

“Stiles,” Derek says quietly. He’s still holding Stiles’ hand. “I wouldn’t—“ Derek starts, then stops. “I am not accustomed to—allowing myself to—I haven’t thought of— _Stiles_ ,” he says again. He stops in the middle of the sidewalk then, still holding Stiles’ hand, pulling him back. “I want to be—I want the same thing, I believe,” he says softly, mouth in a thin line as if it hurts to say the words. “I am not certain how.”

Stiles is drunk, and happy, and barely thinking clearly, but he grins brilliantly. “That’s okay. It’s easy.” He lurches forward, lands a kiss on the corner of Derek’s mouth. “Come on. Let’s go home, I’ll give you a crash course.” 


	6. Chapter 6

The kiss tingles on Stiles’ lips all the way back to the apartment, Derek’s hand clutched firmly in his. It had been an accident, an impulse uncontrolled, the fault of the three margaritas and the way Derek had been pressing warm against his side all night. But Derek doesn’t let go of his hand, squeezes it tight as ever, and holds the door open for him when they walk in, so Stiles focuses on his even breathing and on how he’s going to apologize if it comes to that. There’s still a chance Derek might want to take it back. Stiles wants to be prepared. He shuts and locks the door behind both of them.

“Stiles?” Derek asks, and his voice sounds small in a way it hasn’t since Stiles found him. “Are you well?”

Stiles turns around and smiles at him. “I’m fine,” he says. “Come on. Let’s go to bed.”

Derek takes Stiles’ hand again. “You will have to teach me. I—I have never. I know things are different in this time, but in mine—“

“I know,” Stiles says, interrupting. “It’s okay. We have all the time in the world.” Derek doesn’t want to take it back. Derek wants to try, to give in. To adapt to this new and strange place he’s found himself in. Maybe that means he’d be willing to stay. Especially if the sex is good.

Stiles is getting ahead of himself. He smiles at Derek and pulls him close for a soft, closed-mouth kiss. Here, he has to stay grounded here. This is where he belongs.

“Come on, grandpa. Let’s get naked.”

 

In the bedroom Derek stands watching Stiles with his mouth half-open, stood still while Stiles peels away layer after layer and throws them in the hamper. When he’s naked, he steps close to Derek and lays hands on his shoulders. “You, too,” Stiles says, pushing the coat off of Derek’s back. Derek undresses as if he’s wading through molasses, every movement deliberate and slow. Stiles almost asks if he wants to stop twice, until he sees a hint of a smile on Derek’s face. “You’re being a tease, Derek,” Stiles murmurs.

Derek smiles a little wider. “You like looking at me.”

“You’re right,” Stiles admits, and cups Derek’s face with his hands. “I like touching you more.”

The kiss is slow, sweet, the slightest hint of teeth. Derek’s hands settle around Stiles’ hipbones, and oh, yes, this is the warmth Stiles has been looking for. He hasn’t done something like this in years, something ill-advised and oh so good, and nothing’s going to stop him now from pulling Derek down with him and tearing him apart.

He starts slowly, turning Derek towards the bed and pushing him until the backs of his knees hit the edge. Stiles loves the closeness of sex, loves to feel like the rest of the world has disappeared into the ether. Everything important is right here, with Derek, in his touch and kiss and the hitch of his breath. It’s easy to focus on one thing when there’s nothing else in the world.

Derek lies back, and Stiles crawls over him, pressing feather-light kisses to Derek’s skin. There’s a lot he wants to do—enough that he’s made a list in his head. This is good for now, though. Really good. He can hear Derek’s soft, panting breaths, can taste the hint of salt on his skin. He bites down at the jut of Derek’s hip, testing.

“Oh,” Derek says. Stiles smiles, and bites a little harder, leaving a mark. He didn’t think this would ever happen—considered it, sure, hoped for it, definitely—and it’s a wonder, being able to kiss Derek’s skin and hear Derek’s sounds.

Slowly, he brings a hand up to fist Derek’s dick, watching as his eyes roll back into his head. Derek’s hands are fisting the sheets, tensing and releasing, so Stiles takes his time breathing damply over the crown of Derek’s dick before sliding his mouth down.

“Oh, damn,” Derek babbles, and Stiles smiles (as best as he can). His first time had been less than spectacular, drunken fumbling in a tiny dorm room. Stiles is going to make sure that Derek’s first time is way, way better.

He’s pretty sure he’s already made it when Derek comes about thirty seconds later.

There’s jizz on Stiles’ cheek, just a little, and he’s still swallowing the last of it when Derek reaches a hand to wipe the leftover off. Stiles moves back up Derek’s body and presses another kiss to his mouth.

“You okay?”

Derek nods so hard Stiles is afraid he’ll give himself whiplash . “I’m— _Stiles_ ,” he mumbles, and pulls Stiles’ mouth down for kiss after sloppy, frantic kiss.

“No, _I’m_ Stiles,” Stiles teases, laughing. “You’re Derek. And you’re not done yet—I have plenty more planned for you.”

“There’s—I mean. Of course there’s more. Even I know that.”

Stiles grins and flops down into Derek’s arms, noisily kissing every inch of him he can reach. “Yes, there is, and we can take our time getting to it. How’s this for now?”

“This is good,” Derek breathes, holding so tightly to Stiles there’s no way of telling where either of them begins or ends. Stiles is still hard, pressed against Derek’s hip, but he’s willing to wait. He’s never been willing to wait for much of anything, before.

 

A few hours later, Stiles wakes in the curve of Derek’s body, Derek’s fingers carefully trailing down his spine. Stiles shows him where to put them, how to open him up and slide in. Stiles can see Derek’s face beneath him, watches him come with his head tipped back and the light on the curve of his mouth. “Fuck, you’re beautiful,” he catches himself saying. Derek, fortunately, doesn’t hear him, just blindly reaches down and fumbles a hand over Stiles’ dick where it’s pressed against Derek’s own stomach.

Stiles comes.

Derek strokes him through it, his eyes on Stiles' face, mouth, until Stiles can't take it any more, too sensitive, has to fall forward and press kisses to Derek's neck, his face. When he looks Derek in the face he's smiling, his eyes filled with something Stiles hasn't seen from him yet. After a minute he places it. Stiles is pretty sure what he's looking at is joy.

Stiles curls a hand in Derek's hair, stroking back behind his ear, then pulls away. "So, now you know how it's done in this day and age."

Derek laughs, pushes and manhandles Stiles until they're facing each other in the bed, knees touching and hands clasped. "It is not what I expected, but I am happy to have done it--with you, especially with you."

Stiles squirms a little until he's close enough to lean forward and kiss, leaving Derek smiling. "What did you mean, when I came out to you and you said you weren't unfamiliar with the notion? Had you thought about it? Did you dare?"

Derek frowns, which is not what Stiles was going for. "I--I never, no. There wasn't much time for considering how the local stablehand's mouth would look on my cock."

Stiles scoots closer still, can't help but get closer and closer. He wants to know everything about the place that Derek was before he came here, wants to know everything about the place he will someday go, go and leave Stiles behind. "What about the local dairymaid? Did you think about her?"

Derek shakes his head. "I did not. And now, I never will--I shall be too busy thinking about you." He kisses Stiles gently, flops back onto his back and pulls Stiles in next to him. "I cannot say I am sorry for that."

"Yeah, good," Stiles replies. "Me neither."

He sleeps through the rest of the night.


	7. Chapter 7

Stiles spends the next three days smiling dopily around the apartment, finding places to press Derek up against and kiss him before backing away, letting Derek chase him until any hope of doing anything productive goes flying out the window. It's blissful, forgetting the rest of the universe, the rest of the problems that come along with having an impossible entity sleeping in your bed. He's obviously ignoring his thesis, too, which means he genuinely worries about nothing except what the next excuse is going to be to get Derek in his bed. Scott even calls him on it, home for a rare bite to eat and change of clothes, before heading to his internship with the animal hospital.

"You look stupid-happy, dude," he says, running out the door. "I'm glad. One of these days we're gonna have a real, like, talk about it, with feelings and stuff."

"Yeah, yeah," Stiles says, waving him out the door. "Just as soon as you stop spending every spare minute with Allison, we can get right on that!"

"See you, dude," Scott says with a laugh and runs out, the door closing behind him. Derek comes out of the kitchen, wiping his hands.

"Feelings and stuff?" he asks.

Stiles tips his head back on the sofa to look at him upside down. "Yeah, man, feelings and stuff. Scott and I are evolved, we talk about that kind of stuff."

Derek sidles into the room and sits down on the sofa next to him. "And yet you are not born brothers. I am glad to see that some things seem more fortunate in this time."

Stiles shrugs. "Yeah, there are a lot of pretty good things about the present. But I don't know, there are probably some good things about the past too. You have brothers, right? At least one of them?"

"I have two brothers and two sisters," Derek answers. "I am the oldest--none of them were asked to join the war. My uncle, though, my father's brother. He was in the field with me, we tried to take care of each other."

"And what about the Argents? How did you end up in their basement?"

Derek looks over at him. "It is not a happy story, Stiles."

"Yeah, but it's your story, and I want to hear it. Unless you don't want me to, which is totally up to you, but I'm down for an unhappy story if you are."

Derek sighs. "All right. I will tell you as much as I am able--although I cannot promise that is everything."

Stiles turns to face him. "I'm ready."

 

He's not, though, is the thing. He's really, really not.

 

Before the war, the Argents and the Hales had actually been pretty good friends, since their farmland in the heart of Virginia butted up next to each other. Gerard Argent and Derek’s father Wilson had been close enough to feel comfortable trading tall tales over fences and exchanging the occasional cup of sugar or bucket of milk. Derek and the Argent’s only daughter had nigh grown up together, although she was a few years older and always leading him into trouble.

“I thought for a while she might marry me—it would have been a sound business choice, all our land meeting up. But I was fourteen and she was eighteen, and she would have made a terrible old maid. She took the first marriage she was offered, from a wealthy tobacco man further down South, and came home when her husband went to war instead of waiting in an empty homestead.

“Her name was Kate,” Derek says, his eyes on the ground. The South, Derek explains, had changed Kate. She was harder, sharper. “Her family—we thought they were fighting for the Union, like us. We thought they’d chosen the North. But they’ve all been spies since the beginning, were planning it when she married the tobacco man. She told me she had food and water waiting for me, for the men in my company. It was a lie.”

“That’s the kind of Argent you know?” Stiles asks, breath puffing across Derek’s shoulder.

“That’s the kind of Argent I know,” Derek confirms. “We were camped so close to my home, Stiles. I thought it would be nice to give the men a meal that wasn’t hard biscuits. I think I might have killed them instead.”

 “Jesus,” Stiles swears. “That’s so fucked up, Derek.” He can’t even begin to imagine.

“All the intelligence was quiet. I’d asked permission for a two day leave to check in on my mother. There was no reason to believe I wouldn’t be back on time, that I couldn’t see my family and bring back something decent for the company.”

Stiles scoots closer and lays a hand on Derek’s shoulder, telegraphing his movement so Derek knows it’s coming. “I am so sorry that you’ve had so much to go through,” he says quietly. “I promise, I will try my best to help you find a way back home, if that is what you need.”

Derek turns towards him, eyes just this side of cold and steely. “What I need,” he says lowly, “is to throw you over my shoulder and do something no decent man of my century would admit to wanting out loud.”

“I’ll be honest,” Stiles says. “I want to feel badly for leading you into a life of sin, but I’m having trouble regretting it.”

“Me, too,” Derek says, and presses Stiles back into the couch cushions, kissing him until he has a healthy case of stubble burn. It’s not everything, but it’s enough.

 

In the middle of the night, Stiles watches Derek sleep, his breathing deep and even, undisturbed. He wants to preserve this moment in his memory forever, so that whatever happens, he’ll always have the soft sound of Derek’s breath in his heart. It’s a rhythm he thinks he could march to for the rest of his life. It’s terrifying. It’s worth it.

Derek shifts, turns, nosing into Stiles’ skin and holding him tightly. To think that only a few weeks ago Stiles had been an ordinary guy in an ordinary life. Now he’s the proud owner of his very own impossible love story, complete with impossible boyfriend.

He settles into Derek’s embrace, strokes lightly down his arms and back. Derek mumbles something into the curve of Stiles’ neck and Stiles smiles. He can enjoy this for just a little bit longer, right? Right?

He falls asleep to the sound of Derek breathing, sending a ceaseless string of prayers out into the universe, pretending he doesn’t feel guilty for wanting Derek to stay forever, to never go home again.

 

He gets two more weeks. 


	8. Chapter 8

Derek wakes Stiles up around two in the morning just a little while later, shaking Stiles’ shoulder until he lifts up and turns around. “Stiles, I think I have to go back.”

Stiles frowns. “Do you really think you can? I mean—I’m not—I don’t want you to leave, obviously, I want to keep you here forever. But we never figured out how you, uh, got here.”

Derek lies down behind him again, presses his nose into the nape of Stiles’ neck. “I know. But I’ve been feeling tugging. I can’t explain it, it’s just there.”

Stiles shrugs. “Okay, I guess. I’m going to miss you, dude.”

“Yeah,” Derek says. “Me too.”

There’s not a lot that Stiles can do, really. It’s not like he thought Derek would stay forever—hard as he might have wished for it. He’s always known there was going to be a moment he would have to let go. He just didn’t think it would come so soon. Then again, nobody ever does.

Derek is quiet next to him, head pressed against Stiles’ shoulder. “Come on,” Stiles finally says, turning towards Derek. “Let’s make the most of what we’ve got—I don’t feel much like sleeping, and I bet you don’t either. You don’t know when it’s coming, and neither do I—so why wait, when we have right now.”

Derek has a look on his face Stiles has never seen before, like he’s only just realized how much he’ll be leaving behind. A part of Stiles is perversely glad—he’ll miss Derek so much, he’s a little relieved to see that Derek will miss him too—but that wasn’t the reason he said it. It’s just that there’s nothing else he can say.

Derek holds him tightly, kisses him fiercely, pressing into every touch the wish that he could stay. Stiles can feel it burning hot like a brand on his skin, searing itself into permanence, every inch a reminder. When Derek slides inside of him, Stiles bites down on a sob, substitutes Derek’s shoulder for his own fist. He sucks hard enough to leave a mark that will last through the jump, his own little souvenir. Derek lets him, cradles Stiles’ face in his hands, licks into his mouth. Derek doesn’t apologize, though. A blessing. If he had, Stiles doesn’t know what he would have done.

After, they lie facing each other like children, hands clasped, knees touching. “I didn’t mean to drag you into something like this,” Stiles finally says, eyes on Derek’s hands, the heft and weight of his battle scars. “I thought it would be fun, take you out of your head a little. I didn’t expect it to feel like this.”

“You mean it doesn’t always feel like this?” Derek whispers, so quietly Stiles thinks he’s misheard. But Derek moves closer, throws a leg over Stiles’ knees, and Stiles looks up at Derek’s face.

“No, Derek, it doesn’t always feel like this.”

It’s the closest Stiles has come to acknowledging what’s been percolating in the back of his head, because what’s been percolating in the back of his head is crazy. It’s ridiculous to think that he could have fallen in love with Derek over the course of two whirlwind weeks and several excellent orgasms. That’s absurd. Even figuring out how he felt about Lydia took him several months, and that was in high school. The smell of perfume in a crowded hallway gave him a boner in high school. This is completely different. This is Derek.

Derek doesn’t know what the Internet is really for, can’t drive a car, doesn’t have a cell phone. Derek broods about things Stiles couldn’t even begin to understand, people who have been lost to him in ways that seem far more permanent than Stiles’ mother dying in a hospital that smelled like antiseptic. Derek has an entire family out there, their lives hanging in the balance of whether or not he goes home, gets out of that freaky ass torture chamber of the Argents’ alive. And Stiles loves it. He loves that Derek’s life has purpose, or at least that Derek believes it does. He loves that his brooding, time-traveling boyfriend has so much honor that he can’t stay in this new, better time without feeling guilty he’s left other people behind. He loves that Derek is determined to do the right thing, even though it aches to think that Stiles can’t keep him here. Stiles loves him. Stiles _loves_ him.

“Will you promise me something?” Stiles asks, finally, laying a hand on Derek’s jaw, stroking against the dark stubble. “If you get back there. Will you leave me something somewhere so that I know you’re okay?”

Derek swallows, nods. “Of course I will, Stiles,” he rasps, and presses a hard kiss to Stiles’ mouth. “I’ll leave signs on bricks all over this city. Something that will get to you. Something you’ll be able to see.”

“Good,” Stiles says, and it’s better than doing something stupid, like saying _I love you_ even when Derek surely already knows. “I’ll be looking.”

 

They spend the rest of the weekend in bed, ordering in and telling secrets. Stiles tells Derek his real name, how his mother had named him something nearly unpronounceable on purpose, how he had his hair buzzed short for years after she died as his own sort of penance. Derek tells him about the rumors of army life, the hundreds of things he missed about home when he was marching—the hundreds of things he’ll miss about this future world when he’s gone.

“Hot water is one of the most profound, I believe. When you took me in and pointed me toward that wonderful shower, I thought I might have died and ended up in a sweet, warm heaven.”

“When did you figure out you weren’t?”

Derek smiles, kisses Stiles on the mouth. “When you fed me salty soup from a can. It was quite edible—much better than army rations. But nothing close to the kind of cooking I’d been used to at home.”

Stiles makes a face very close to indignant, but he doesn’t really have a leg to stand on. “Well, to be fair, I thought you were just a weird homeless guy, so I guess we both had some learning to do.”

Derek laughs. “It’s not all hot water and television though,” he says after a minute. “I hope you know that.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Duh, dude, of course I do. I know you’re going to be sorry you can’t get with this all day every day. It’s okay, I will solemnly swear to never tell you about all the ass I’m going to get after you vanish back in the timestream.”

“Very funny,” Derek growls, rolling on top of Stiles, pinning him down. “Very funny indeed.”

He kisses Stiles again and again after that, taking his time. For a guy who’d never thought about the stablehand he’s made some serious progress on the too-sexy-for-words front. Stiles hopes whoever he ends up with appreciates the prowess he’s gained, or whatever.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Derek groans, sliding a hand under Stiles’ ass and squeezing. “There won’t be anyone else.”

Stiles bites his own lip and can’t say a damn word.


	9. Chapter 9

One morning Stiles wakes up and Derek is gone. There’s no note, nothing to suggest Derek was ever there at all. Nothing except Derek’s new-old clothes, hanging next to Stiles’ in the closet. They’re all just this side of too loose and baggy on him, but they’ll incorporate themselves soon enough, he’s sure, and nobody will know.

That’s the worst part, Stiles thinks. Nobody is going to know. Everything Derek had in this time, in this life, was carefully designed so he could just fade away. Stiles didn’t think it was going to be hard, being the only one who really knew. Stiles was wrong.

The minute he wakes up and Derek isn’t there, he knows. He doesn’t need a note to know it’s happened, that Derek isn’t coming back. He sits up in the bed and listens to the sounds of an empty flat.

He’ll tell Scott that he and Derek split up, although Scott will wonder why. He’ll tell his dad the boyfriend wasn’t around long enough for him to meet anyway, and no, he’s not keeping anyone a secret, and yes, he’ll bring the next one home if it lasts long enough. He’ll wear the clothes Derek has left, wash them until they’re almost exactly Stiles’ size, no difference to be found between them and what’s already in his drawers, too loose, so many layers. Soon enough everyone will forget about Derek Hale, mysterious, brief boyfriend of Stiles Stilinski. Soon, there won’t be a mystery at all.

 

He goes back to the routine—class, grading, thesis pages, run. Class, grading, thesis pages, run. It’s easier than ever to focus past the urge to get up and start something new, because there’s nothing else there.

It’s worse than any other break-up he’s been through. Stiles finishes his thesis draft in the first week. He knows he hasn't been this productive since high school, when his usual study habits included more medication than advised and a number of inappropriate late-night breaks, so the only explanation for the sheaf of pages sitting on his desk now is the fact that without Derek in the house Stiles is so bored that the only thing interesting enough to work on is in fact the work he should have been doing already. It's a horrible thing to realize. Even Scott looks at him with a pained, sorry smile when Stiles tells him.

"That sucks, dude," Scott offers in solidarity. "Want to get drunk tonight?"

"Is Allison going to be here? 'Cause I don't know if I could take happy attractive couple right now, even if it is you guys."

"Nah, she's working tonight, late shift at the library. Plus she says they got in some really cool old books or whatever, so you don't have to worry about it."

"Then yes," Stiles confirms. "I very much want to get drunk tonight."

Scott surprises him, though, by marching into Stiles' room and pulling out the gayest pair of pants he owns. "Good, put these on. I'm going to get you trashed."

Stiles only puts the pants on because he knows Scott could manhandle him into them if he tried. "I'm never going to forgive you for this, you know."

"Liar," Scott says easily. "Come here, let me fuck up your hair."

The bar is noisy and crowded, which is just what Stiles didn't know he needed. Scott keeps the bartender pouring tequila shots, and Stiles keeps drinking them, until soon he is ten people deep into the dance floor, breathless and loose-limbed and pressed against someone who is the opposite of Derek Hale's type. It's horrible. Stiles loves it. If there’s anything he needed the most, it’s this—something so unbelievably un-Derek-like that it’s as if Derek was never here at all.

Okay, that’s bullshit, and Stiles knows it. Even dancing with a stranger, his ass grinding on an unfamiliar boner doesn’t change the fact that Derek was there, that Derek left his marks, deeper than any bruise. In fact, it’s worse when he thinks about what Derek would say (or, more likely, _not_ say) to see Stiles now. It’s not just that this guy is the opposite of Derek. It’s that the guy Stiles is trying to be isn’t him at all.

He squeezes out of the dancing mob and flings himself out the club door, into the smoking section. The night air is cool and brings him back to himself quickly.

“You okay, man?” Scott comes out behind him, hand already reaching out to touch Stiles’ shoulder.

“I’m fine, yeah. I just—I think that’s all I’ve got,” Stiles confesses. “I don’t think I can stay any longer. It’s too much.”

To his credit, Scott just shrugs. “Okay, dude. Worth a shot. Maybe we should just go home and play Xbox in our pajamas.”

“Now that, my brother, sounds like a plan.”

 

Scott and Allison spend the next few weeks being patently awesome friends, doing their best to keep Stiles out of the doldrums without seeming like they’re pressuring him to be happy. But neither one of them have any idea that this is anything other than your usual everyday breakup, so the constant feeding, the total acquiescence to whatever Stiles wants to watch, the two of them sitting on opposite sides of the sofa so they won’t hurt his feelings when they touch—well, after a while it just gets to be too much. It's not like Stiles can tell them that he's moping not because a relationship had run its course but because the infinite wisdom of the universe had decided to throw Derek into a temporal shitstorm in the first place. Derek didn't dump him--he just wasn't there any more.

Not telling Scott, though, means that when he finally decides it’s time to give in and start looking for the sign Derek promised to leave, there’s nobody to go with him. In a way it’s all right, wandering around the city by himself for a while, searching for an indelible clue that Derek might have carved into some still-standing building, or something. But mostly it’s just lonely, a feeling Stiles is exhausted by. There are so many people in this world with him, in this time with him. Why Derek can’t be one of them Stiles is sure he’ll never know.

He ends up at the university library, wandering through the dusty stacks, poring through texts they’d only barely understood, searching for a reason—any reason—for Derek to have been here at all. It had been easy to forget that Derek wasn’t guaranteed to stay forever, even though they had been looking for a way to send him home. He ends up aimlessly curling up in one of the chairs they used to sit in, taking a minute to just breathe and remember.

At some point, he knows he’s going to have to give up—or maybe give in. There’s nothing in the known world he could use to bring Derek back, or turn back time to live through it again, which makes the only option moving on. He just wishes there was something he could keep—something that says “Derek was here, and was not a figment of Stiles’ overactive imagination in the face of thesis-induced delirium.”

Okay, so maybe not so long. “Derek was here” would do, if he could find it. And maybe Derek didn’t leave it, and maybe Stiles will be looking for the rest of his life. But he has the sneaking suspicion that he won’t be able to move on until he finds it, until he can prove to himself that he didn’t make it up.

Maybe then he’ll someday be able to have a functioning relationship that doesn’t require one member to be stranded out of time.

Stiles sinks deeper into the chair, pulls out his phone to look like he’s doing something important, and sticks his hand in between the cushion and the chair arm. The first time he’d done it, Derek had laughed at him. “What?” Stiles had retorted. “Libraries are cold, asshole.” He’d stuck his tongue out to make Derek laugh again. “And it’s not like you can come over here and warm me up, we’re in public.”

“I could take you home and warm you up,” Derek had suggested, a sly look on his face. They’d gone back to the apartment without finding anything.

Now, though, his hand catches on something that feels like a piece of paper.

“You son of a bitch,” Stiles murmurs to himself. “It can’t possibly be—“

It’s a note from Derek.

 

_Stiles—I thought of where I’m going to put my sign to you. I’m going to put it where we were at home. Start there._

_Yours, D_.

 

It says “Yours.” Stiles closes his eyes, takes a breath, and swears. 


	10. Chapter 10

Sure enough, when Stiles gets home, there's a worn _D_ scratched into the bricks of the apartment building's foundation. It doesn't make him feel better, but it at least lets him know that Derek made it home.

So that's it, it's time to move on. He makes appointments with his thesis advisor, cleans up the apartment, starts cooking for Allison and Scott, who have both gotten increasingly more busy. It's relaxing, taking care of other people. It's even more relaxing taking care of himself.

Stiles has always been good at being single, but this is different. He's not ready to stop being in love with Derek, but it's a zen kind of feeling, a gentle ebb and flow suffusing him, peaceful and quiet. He gets back to his running, pounding the pavement for miles on end. He grows his hair. He calls his dad.

Derek was good for him, he realizes, and it makes him smile.

 

"You look good, man," Scott tells him one night, kicking his ass in Halo. "I know you still miss Derek, and that's cool, but you really do look like you're doing okay."

"Shut up, dude," Stiles says, and launches a missile at Scott's head. "Of course I'm doing okay, I'm awesome."

Scott laughs. Everything is more or less back to normal. So it's time for Stiles to take the last step.

"Hey, man? Can I tell you some stuff about me and Derek? I promise it's not like, sex stuff, although you did talk my ear off about the relative size and diameter of Allison's nipples once and I'm only reminding you of that because I want you to know I've never forgotten it. But seriously--can I tell you some stuff and you promise you won't think I'm crazy?"

Scott rolls his eyes. "I always think you're crazy, but sure, shoot."

"What would you say if I told you that Derek was actually a time traveler from the Civil War and he just happened to show up here one night while you were out and I told you he was into me and we were seeing each other to keep it from being weird that he was suddenly living here?"

Scott looks at him blankly. "Dude? Are you being serious right now?"

"Yes, unfortunately. This was a real event. Derek didn't break up with me, he went back to 1865 to go save his family from certain Confederate treachery, or something. I don't know, we never figured out the physics of it and I don't particularly want to start now."

"Oh my god," Scott says. "You have to tell me everything. Can I tell Allison?"

 

Allison is even more interested than Scott is, actually. She wants to know everything, even the gory details and the not-so-wonderful truths about her family, and she takes the opportunity to dig out some impressive primary sources on the family’s history.

“Kate Argent married a tobacco farmer, yes, that’s in here. And she died in Virginia, in a—Stiles, come here, you need to see this. She died in a house fire. Only one member of the family survived—her brother, Christopher. Holy shit, I think that’s my dad’s ancestor, the one he’s named after. _Stiles!_ Do you know how cool this is for me?”

Stiles swallows thickly and nods. “Yeah, great. Pretty cool, I guess.”

Allison looks up at him, her eyes bright, and frowns. “Oh, Stiles, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—do you think it might have been Derek who set the fire?”

“I really fucking hope so,” Stiles breathes, suddenly so angry he can’t breathe. She had him in her _basement_ , she had him locked up and scared shitless, she had him fucking convinced he was never going to see his family again. So yeah, Stiles hopes Derek lit the match. He survived long enough to scratch his initials in an apartment building. He better have survived long enough to exact revenge. “Sorry, Allison, I know they were your family.”

She waves it off. “I didn’t know them. The part that made me obviously survived, and I find it unbelievably fascinating that there was so much conflict in a single state. Virginia seceded from the Union and Derek still fought for the North, while I’m the indirect descendant of a home-town spy. Or maybe just a bitch with a grudge, who knows.”

Stiles is struck for a moment by the fickle universe, by the set of happenstances that brought this moment to life. He wants to be grateful for the time he had with Derek but he can’t help wondering if this is fair, if this is how it’s meant to be. If all the rest of her days Allison will think of her ancestor as a crazy bitch with a grudge, and if somehow it’s Stiles’ fault. Was he meant to learn a lesson here? Is there a reason for all this drawn-out discomfort?

“You never found out how he got here, did you?” Allison asks, curling a delicate hand around Stiles’ wrist.

He shakes his head. “No, no, I—I never knew. One minute he was here and the next he was gone. He didn’t have any idea why either—we googled it, but all we found was that theories of time travel have been part of human culture since at least 700 BCE, or something. I don’t have any answers. I think that’s the worst part.”

“There are a lot of worst parts, huh,” Allison says quietly. Stiles looks up at her, shocked—there’s no pity in her eyes, just calm understanding.

“I knew I liked you when you and Scott first got together,” he says, “but if I never said it, I hope you know. You’re one good egg, Allison Argent.”

She blushes and kisses him on the cheek. “Thanks, Mr. Stilinski. I’m glad you approve.” 


	11. Chapter 11

Six months later, he’s opening the door to the apartment after a long day running errands when he sees him. “Holy fuck,” Stiles swears, and drops the groceries. “Are you fucking kidding me? Derek?”

Derek looks up from where he’s sitting, almost exactly where he was when Stiles found him the first time. “Yeah, Stiles, it’s me. I’m here.”

“Jesus, let me get the groceries inside, fuck—Derek, oh my god.” He gets in the door and actually manages to get the groceries all the way to the kitchen before he turns and throws himself into Derek’s arms, landing a kiss full on his mouth. “You’re here, what are you doing here—mm.”

“Shut up, Stiles,” Derek rumbles, kissing him harder, longer. Stiles wraps his arms around Derek’s neck and holds on for dear life when Derek presses him up against the counter for a good few minutes of excellent reunion.

“How,” Stiles gasps, when Derek finally pulls back. “Why?”

“Don’t know,” Derek murmurs. “Just wanted it badly enough, I suppose.”

“You wanted to come back to me,” Stiles says softly, and reaches out to thumb over Derek’s mouth, which obviously ends up with more kissing. He grins into the kisses and can’t even begin to stop, not even when Scott opens the door and walks into the kitchen.

“Whoa, guys—hey, Derek, you're back! Congratulations on that, you'll have to tell me all about it at some point. Anyway, you two look busy, so I'm going to go ahead and go.”

Stiles throws a thumbs up over Derek’s shoulder. Scott shuffles away.

“Come on,” Stiles finally says. “Help me put these groceries away and then we can go talk about what the hell happened to you.”

He can’t stop smiling while they work, bumping into and around each other like Derek had never been gone. He can’t believe this is real.

When they’re finally done Derek just takes his hand and leads him back to the bedroom, quiet and smiling.

“I’ll tell you everything, I promise,” Derek says. “But for now, please. It hasn’t just been a long time for you.”

“You do _not_ have to tell me twice,” Stiles breathes, and tackles Derek to the bed.

 

Stiles thinks his favorite part might be the moment when they’ve both gotten everything off, their bodies sliding next to each other, skin to skin, and Derek smiles. But then again there’s the moment when Derek comes, his back arched and jaw tight, and the moment right after, when Stiles is kissed within an inch of his life.

“I thought I went home because of the people I loved,” Derek murmurs, running his fingers through Stiles’ hair. “Then, it turned out, the only people I loved that I had left were here.”

Stiles sits up, traces lines on Derek’s chest. “What happened?”

“I woke up in a field on my farm,” Derek explains. “I thought it might have been just far away from the house, but then I saw the barn. My home was burned to the ground. My family was gone. I wasn’t certain where they might have been, or if any of them survived.”

Stiles closes his eyes, flattening his palm against Derek’s chest, feeling for his heartbeat. Derek covers it with his own hand and squeezes.

“You had said you knew a Hale,” Derek explains. “I thought maybe, if I just wished hard enough, I would come back to you, and I wouldn’t have to go looking for something I didn’t want to find. But that’s not how things work, is it, Stiles?”

“So that’s why it took you six months,” Stiles says quietly. “Did you find out what happened to them?”

“Kate happened to them,” Derek says, his voice flat. “She burned the house to the ground when she couldn’t find me. No-one at home survived.”

“Then how do I know a Hale?”

“Peter’s descendant, I assume. He was still on the march when Kate lit the match.”

“Are you all right?”

Derek turns towards him, kisses him hard. “I am _home_ ,” he says fiercely. And that’s enough, isn’t it? That’s absolutely enough.

He doesn’t have to know what it’s like for Derek, having jumped between times thrice now. Stiles can imagine it the way he imagines teleportation—slightly uncomfortable, with the sensation of things in your body being pulled apart and put back together. Who knows, it might be different for everyone. Some people might feel like they’re Apparating, the squeezing and reintegrating of atoms, molecules, complex bonds between muscle and bone all happening in the span of just a fraction of a second. Maybe Derek just popped back and forth between existence, and happened to land without Splinching.

But that’s gruesome, and with Derek whole and unharmed in front of him, there’s so much more to do than imagine him with half an eyebrow left in 1865.

He runs his hands over Derek’s face, kisses him hard. If he just let it drop, Derek would think something was up—so Stiles rises, and starts to run a bath. " _Do_ you want to talk any more about what happened? I mean, you don't have to, I'm perfectly happy to just accept the fact that you've showed up again out of the blue just like I accepted that you were here with me at all." He turns to watch Derek easing out of bed, moving like he's bruised all over. "Are you all right?"

"Fine, Stiles--you are not an easy man to keep up with. But I do not have to heat this water myself, which is an excellent incentive to get out of the bed."

Stiles beams. "No, you don't. Come on, come here." Derek sinks into the bath and Stiles climbs in after, tucking himself tidily under Derek's arms and leaning his head back on Derek's shoulder. "So you want to tell me? Or not? I can sit here and soak and fall asleep on you either way."

"I'll tell you, I’m sure,” Derek rumbles. "But, like the story of how I came to you the first time, I cannot promise it will be happy."

"Pff," Stiles says, waving a hand lazily. "I am in a bath, pleasantly fucked, with the one person in the world I thought it was impossible to see again. I am unconcerned about happy stories; I have a very happy life."

"Just like that?"

Stiles grins. “Yes, of course. Just like that.” He turns his head, catches Derek’s mouth in a kiss. “There is nothing I wanted more than for you to come home to me, Derek. Even though it was selfish, even though it was something I never thought would happen. I wanted it so badly I could spit. And now I have you, and I have what I wanted, and I have a future that is wide open. You and I could go anywhere and do anything we wanted, because you are here with me and you are not going away. That is quite something, don’t you think? Something it’s incredibly easy to be happy about?”

Derek’s arms tighten around Stiles’ chest, and he buries his mouth in the curve of Stiles’ neck. “Yes, Stiles. It is something, indeed.”

“So, you know, tell me stuff or don’t tell me stuff—it’s up to you. But know that I am here, and I am stupidly happy you’re here with me, and you can correct me if I’m wrong, but I think chances are good that you’ll be here with me for a really long ass time, so whether or not you end up telling me about what else happened or what it was like is totally up to you. I have an idea of what the actual jumping was like, something I made up in my head, and I don’t know if it’s true or not, but the point is, it doesn’t matter. We are in the same place and the same time. And until we break up in a totally modern and completely mundane way, I’m good with that being enough.”

“Damn it, I love you, Stiles,” Derek growls out, his mouth still full of Stiles’ wet skin. Stiles just laughs, chuffing against Derek’s octopus-like grip, and squeezes Derek’s wrist.

“Yeah, well, you’re not alone there. I love you too.” 


	12. Epilogue

Just as they’re about to leave the apartment, Stiles stops them. “Are you sure you want to do this?” Stiles asks, straightening Derek’s tie. “We can leave right now, I’ll pretend it never happened.”

“No, I want to meet her,” Derek says, then presses a kiss to Stiles’ mouth. “It’ll be fine, you’ll see. Stop being such a worrywart.”

Stiles laughs. “Me, the worrywart. Sure, okay. I’m not the one who took ten months to even _tell_ me he wanted to meet his great-great-great-niece, or whatever you’d call her.”

“She’s a cousin, with a few removals, I believe. I am not so hobbit-like as to have our genealogy memorized.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. I’m just saying, if you want to try again after another few months, nobody’s going to fault you. I might do some judging, but I won’t fault you for it.”

Derek looks steadily at him and covers one of Stiles’ hands with his own. “I’m ready, Stiles. It’s all going to be okay.”

“I’m really glad you’re sure about that, Derek.” Derek laughs.

“Me too, worrywart.” He takes Stiles’ hand and leads him out the door, stepping out into bright sunshine. Stiles is so proud of him he’s not sure where he’s going to put all the swelling in his chest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could not have done this without the amazing cheerleading of reinventweather, or the incredible work of sibila_cantus. I feel so spoiled by the people who have been part of this story! Thank you both, and thanks to the awesome Teen Wolf fandom!


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